We work to solve social problems and improve problem-solving. We take on big problems like educational disengagement, offending, unemployment, chronic disease, and ageing. Problems that are about how people move between life stages and through life’s challenges. Problems that create opportunities to enable new ways of living and doing.

The public sector has traditionally focused on problems over opportunities. They’ve defined success as less bad things. Looking top-down, they’ve confused symptoms for causes. Innovation has meant joining-up and improving access to the same problem-reducing services.

The young people, older people, families and substance users we’ve worked with do not define success as the absence of problems, or even as better services. First, they talk about living lives full of good things. Then, they talk about the services and supports that can help them do that. This has led us to a problem-solving approach that starts with outcomes.

An approach that works in, with, for communities to work backwards from outcomes to co-designed solutions. An approach that defines innovation as prototyping, embedding, and measuring new practice and policy to enable better living and doing.

Our work is all about enabling more people to live the good life.

We think outcomes should be in terms of good living, not good services. While we can’t define the good life–that’s for the people we work with to do–we can set out a few starting points. The good life is more than the absence of problems. The good life is about the freedom to do, to be, and to grow.

  • Freedom to do
    Knowing how and having the opportunity to influence our life through our choices, skills, and strengths.
  • Freedom to be
    Feeling good about and feeling appreciated for who we are and what we can offer our families, communities, and society.
  • Freedom to grow
    Feeling safe, secure and supported enough to have hopes, take risks, and discover new possibilities.

We address big social problems. But, we don’t have all the answers.

We ask critical questions and use methods that bring people together to develop and scale different answers. Our work is guided by a set of principles:

  • Seek what you don’t know
  • Learn and grow
  • Play fair
  • Make real
  • Share lots
  • Do better


going-backwards pamphlet
Read how we got here. Our hybrid problem-solving approach has evolved out of doing too many design-led and policy-led projects with limited social impact.

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